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Scouts Rally SA once again returned to the Mount Crawford Forest and the northern hills over the weekend of August 1-3 for three heats of intense gravel rally action on some of South Australia’s most challenging roads.

Taking the outright event win and victory in round four of the Australian Rally Championship was Scott Pedder and Dale Moscatt in the Walkinshaw Performance prepared Renault Sport Clio R3. The pairing narrowly claimed victory in all three heats which was enough to snatch the lead of the ARC.

Claiming second place was Brendon Reeves and Rhiannon Gelsomino in the quick little G2 Mazda 2. It was a close battle for much of the event however the Mazda 2 was struck with problems, including non functioning windscreen wipers in heavy rain and the loss of a rear wheel on SS20 when the studs broke, forcing Reeves to tripod back to service. Reeves was able to match the pace of Pedder when everything was working correctly, but these niggling problems kept him down at this crucial point in the championship. With two rounds remaining, Pedder managed to snatch the championship lead. Continue reading →

In a shock and completely unexpected result, Damian Reed has won the 2014 Robertstown Rally, round two of the South Australian Rally Championship, in his Mazda 121. Well… not quite. But his efforts in gallantly tackling this creek crossing which formed part of a rally postponed due to bad weather and impassable stage conditions surely deserves some kind of award.

Apocalyptic conditions were forecast for the rally and the few days before it, and we prepared with boot fulls of wet weather gear, jumpers and rain covers for the cameras. To be honest it was almost a bit of a letdown when photographer Mark Williams and myself arrived at Robertstown on Friday afternoon to discover dry roads, dust and almost zero mud on our recce. The sun was even out.

But as the sun dipped below the horizon and the ambient dropped even further a visible storm front approached bringing howling winds and rain. Lots of rain. As we sat around the bar of the Robertstown Pub that evening the much mooted storm front hit and stayed until daybreak. A lot of us were camping in the clubrooms of the Robertstown footy club that night and almost everyone was woken at some point by the rains. It was torrential.

It was a little odd when at around 8am the organisers declared the rally postponed because the weather didn’t seem that bad. It was hardly raining, but the damage was done. Continue reading →

Back in June 2012 Any Given Reason managed to be one of the first motoring outlets to publish a drive story on the just released Toyota 86, a hotly anticipated little sports car that was set to take the world by storm. After a few weeks of badgering via email, and more as a result of the generosity of an old friend who happened to be a Toyota dealer rather than AGR being viewed as a preeminent and worthy publication, I ended up with one of the very first 86’s in Adelaide to drive for a few hours.

That drive was exciting but it came with added stressors – the car was Adelaide Hills Toyota’s only demo, there was a figurative queue of customers with actual money in their pockets waiting for a legitimate test drive and there was at least a seven month wait before the dealership would see another one. I really didn’t want to be the first guy in Adelaide to crash an 86 and I was being so careful that I didn’t learn a whole lot about how it truly carved up the corners. What I needed was a racetrack.

It’s now been almost two years since the 86 joined the market and AGR was recently invited to Mallala Motorsport Park to have a faster drive, once again courtesy of Adelaide Hills Toyota.

As a general rule stock street cars aren’t usually very good on the track, however I had high hopes for the 86 because it was designed from scratch as a sports car for purists. In a world where cars are increasing in complexity, mass and cost, it was a gutsy move for Toyota to buck the trend and give one man complete autonomy over the project to build something light, cheap and fun that would shape the future direction of one of the worlds biggest auto makers. There were no committees or focus groups on the 86 project; just one engineer dictating the creation of the sports car the world needed. The car had to be engaging on the road, but the 86 had to be competent on the track as well. During its development the engineering team consulted grassroots racers; they made sure it could be easily drifted; they ensured the boot was big enough to carry a full set of spare wheels and they designed the headrests so that they could be flipped around to accommodate a helmet. Continue reading →

Well over 600 enthusiast cars gathered recently on a hot Saturday night in early February for the Ben Simpson Memorial Cruise; an interclub, everything welcome, drive through Adelaide and the hills to raise awareness and funds for a variety of mental health issues.

Initially organised by the late Ben’s parents as a small memorial event for their son who tragically took his own life, the BSMC has quickly become one of the biggest events on the Adelaide calendar. Whilst it’s the cars we come for, the cruise has a sub-plot and serves to not only raise funds but to spread knowledge of mental health issues within the automotive community; a group of people that would sooner give away their cars than discuss their mental health.

But it is the cars that we come for, and most certainly the cars are what takes centre stage. The cruise met at the Tea Tree Plaza carpark, and managed to completely fill a fair proportion of it. Think how busy the carpark is at the height of the pre Christmas rush, and that’s a fair indication of how full the BSMC was.

However rather than traffic jams of family trucksters and people negotiating tiny gaps with overflowing trolleys, there were lines of immaculately modified cars and people with cameras far outnumbered people with shopping bags. Continue reading →

The Jaf’s Cruise, traditionally held on the Saturday night between Christmas and New Year, is easily one of the biggest cruise nights in Adelaide. With over 1000 cars, this annual event has become both famous and infamous for a variety of equally excellent reasons.

This year the cruise clashed with Any Given Reason’s own Burger Meet 3, however at the conclusion of Burger Meet a few of us went down to the Marion shopping center to check out the finish point. We arrived at around 1030pm and there were still cars streaming into an already overflowing car park – it was quite a sight. Picture the Marion car park at the height of the pre-Christmas rush but with a lot more people milling about, and that’s an idea of how packed it was.

Most of the cars at Jaf’s aren’t typically what we’re into here at Any Given Reason, and to be honest the thought of sitting stationary in a big police patrolled 70km traffic jam around the suburbs from one shopping centre to another isn’t exactly my idea of a good night out with my car. I suspect a lot of AGR readers share that view.

That said, there’s still some really cool stuff that surfaces at Jaf’s and it’s still definitely worth checking out. I think going to Jaf’s is a bit like shopping at an op-shop. Most of the stuff isn’t worth your time, but every so often you uncover a gem.

So this is a small collection of a few of the more interesting cars we discovered at Jaf’s. Enjoy!

The concept of Burger Meet is simple – a car park meet to get as many readers of Any Given Reason and their cars in the same place as possible. The emphasis is on diversity and informality, and the vague idea of standing around a car park eating burgers is about as far as the planning goes.

On the evening of Saturday 28th December, the readers of Any Given Reason descended on the Hagen Arms Hotel at Echunga in the Adelaide Hills to watch the sun set with burgers, beers, and of course, cars. And what a spectacular array of cars it was – but more on that later.

The thing that makes organising Burger Meet such an exciting, rewarding and completely terrifying experience is that I have absolutely no idea who actually reads and follows this blog. I get traffic statistics but they’re just abstract numbers and graphs, so when I put the word out that Burger Meet 3 was happening I had exactly zero idea who and how many people would actually come. I guessed about 80 cars and thought it would be pretty cool if we could fill the car park, but when streams of cars started pouring in and it wasn’t even the 6pm start-time yet, I started to get a little nervous/overjoyed. Continue reading →

Fierce competition is good, and from motorkhana to Australian GT it’s often the tick of the stopwatch and the heat of the moment that provides that last bit of drive and incentive to shave every last tenth. Strong competition breeds the best and whilst there’s a definite joy in competing to your limit, it’s often far from relaxing.

That’s where a bloke named Roger Dutton – barbeque extraordinaire and mechanic for Adelaide based Formula 3 and Carrera Cup outfit Team BRM – comes in. Roger is involved in motorsport at a far higher level than most, but also knows the value in relaxing and enjoying it from time to time, and has pretty much built his own personal Mk1 Escort around this ethos. Through his sideline business Retrogarage, Roger has started organising track days at Mallala where the focus is very much on enjoyment.

Any Given Reason was invited to join the fun by longtime reader Tom Gilbert, so with instructions to meet up with the gang at the BP on Portrush at 630 on a Wednesday morning, I threaded my way through the dawn of peak hour traffic, knowing something far more interesting than a desk would be waiting for me at the other end. These suspicions were confirmed when an immaculate 356B and a throaty 964 Carrera 2 pulled onto the forecourt as if on cue. Continue reading →